Illuminating counsel for canine “caregivers.”
A service-dog trainer details a dog-teaching method heavy on respect, kindness, positive reinforcement and choice.
Arnold’s voice is assertive with experience—her insights into working with dogs are hard-won after years of close interaction. Though not a scientist, the author fashions a teaching regime based on canine behavior and aptitude. In her opinion, a solid, loving relationship between a human and a dog requires the human getting into the dog’s head. Understanding how a dog views the world is extremely rewarding. If you know how a dog’s eyes work, as well as the blessings and vulnerabilities of its auditory acuity and the communicative intent of body language and vocalizations, you will be able to appreciate and effectively guide a dog’s behavior. Likewise a dog’s emotional state and cognitive abilities—it’s no news to Arnold that dogs possess qualities like empathy, fairness, intention, personality, discriminating choice, telepathy and precognition, characteristics that she has seen with her own eyes, and backed up by preliminary controlled-experiment research. The force and surety of Arnold’s convictions is only rarely undermined by wayward assertions—e.g., that learning to carry a handbag is an “excellent example that dogs can retain and manipulate abstract images.” Mostly, though, the author’s storehouse of anecdotal evidence is telling and entertaining, and her demolition of various alpha-model and negative-reinforcement teaching techniques is thorough and lofty: “Shock collars are the tools of trainers not willing or able to use other, more humane methods.” For readers who do not possess ample time, patience, kindness and openness to lateral thinking, Arnold would suggest not getting a dog.
Illuminating counsel for canine “caregivers.”Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6888-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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